At this moment their numbers have diminished to a few dozens, or at most a few hundreds; if I have read correctly there are only two or three small herds known to exist, one of them being in the north of Texas and the other near the boundary between Canada and the United States. An effort is being made to capture the few remaining bison and keep them in reserve fields or pastures, but it is doubtful if the experiment succeeds. The bison does not thrive in captivity, and as for taking him alive that is a very difficult matter. The calves and cows may possibly be captured but as for the bulls I would rather not be the one to attempt to take them.”
“They are hard fighters; I suppose,” said George.
“When driven into a corner and forced to defend themselves,” Mr. Graham answered, “they do so with great vigor. Properly speaking, the bison is not a ferocious animal: he does not wantonly attack man but on the contrary will always flee from him if he has the opportunity. His fighting qualities come out when he is obliged to defend himself or when men get in the way of the herds in their movements across country. The fiercest and strongest bulls are always in advance: they turn aside if they can do so in time, but if men get in their way and attack them they dash on without regard to circumstances. A man who is thrown down in front of an advancing herd has very little chance of escape. The herd passes on and tramples him to death, even if he escapes the advance guard of bulls.”
“I have read,” said Harry, “of a man who was in front of a herd of buffalo when his horse stumbled and fell. The man had the presence of mind to draw his revolver and fire it several times, not at the herd or any animal in it, but straight up in the air. If he had wounded one of the bulls he and his horse would have been gored to death; the sound of the shots caused the advance to divide and leave him unharmed. The rest of the herd followed the example of the advance and for several hours the man and the horse lay there like a little islet in a vast river of buffaloes. When the last of the herd had passed, the man mounted his horse and rode away, very thankful to have escaped unharmed from so great a danger.”
“Incidents of the same kind have occurred in stampedes of cattle in the far west of our country and in Australia,” said Mr. Graham.
Harry asked what a stampede was.
“Cattle and horses are said to be stampeded,” Mr. Graham answered, “when they take fright at anything and run away. The word is of Spanish origin and seems at present to be regularly adopted into our language. When a large herd of half-wild cattle is stampeded it is very apt to run over anything that comes in its way. Sometimes the herdsmen are thrown from their horses right in the midst of a frightened herd and trampled to death; if it happens that the herd separates at the moment a man falls the rest of it will do likewise and nothing serious occurs.